I assume that you are still attempting to respond to me, which makes this 3 more strawmen arguments, neatly enumerated in one post, and I never claimed any of those things.

DaveS on December 15, 2007 at 12:38 AM

It’s OK DaveS. You can stop defending your strawman, I think you’ve knocked the stuffing out of him already.

There’s no shame in not being able to address real facts when presented to you and throwing insults will not win your arguments either, but you will lose your creditability in being able to discuss the subject rationally and logically.

Our facts, which you call talking points, are pretty hard to dismiss I know. But rest assured that facts will eventually give way to the hysteria and hyperbole about Global Warming.

Once again your post rambles on illogically. The ideal temp is a good question. Because unless humans know what an ideal temp is how can we define success in the “battle of our life times” (global warming) If you can’t define success you leave an open ended war going on. Iraq is a great example of this. Therefore because the Global warmers do not define an ideal temp then they are setting themselves up to control our lives forever. Also how do we know what the earth’s ideal temp is to support life. By all geologic reports genntic diversity was greater during the warmer periods of the earth. And cold periods resulted in major extincton periods. Look at the rainforests possible the area of greatest genetic diversity of present day earth. All are located in warmer climates than the US. So again the question is raised what is an ideal climate, is global warming bad for the earth, for man, or just different.

In the 1970’s the same people clamoring about global warming today were warning of a new ice age coming because things were colder than normal. They were wrong. Which means that they could be wrong today. All points are vaule arguements in theb global warming debate and not strawmen.
Far from tilting at windmills.

The global warmers argument is it is happening, that man is the cause and that it will be very bad for the earth and for man. If any of the three are not true it changes the whole discussion.

1) Global warming is happening and has been happening for the last 10,000 years (proven beyond a doubt)

2) The earth has gone through countless periods of warming and cooling in its lifetime (again proven beyond a doubt)

3) All other periods of cooling and warming happened without man’s help. (proven without a doubt)

4) Therefore the chance of this period of warming be caused by man is slim since man’s ability to produce Co2 over the last 10,000 years.

5) Life has proven during the other periods of warming and cooling to be able to survive and too flrouish at times. Therefore the argument of Global Warmers that this time life will be wiped out is silly and factually wrong.

6) finally since the Sun is the most active in the last 60years has it has been in the last 1,000 years the argument that it is Man and not natural warming is very suspect.

Take all this into mind and it becomes beyond silly to change our entire life style because of an unproven fear mongering and other motives must be taken into account as to why global warming is being pushed upon us.

I never said you said anything about the temp. (your strawman), I asked you if you had an ideal temp.

Bullcrap. You demanded that I “enlighten” you as to my ideal temp. That’s a strawman, as I never said anything about an ideal temp… that was something you injected out of thin air, because it was a topic that you would rather discuss than whatever it was we were discussing. That’s the very definition of a strawman. At the very least it was question begging, if I charitably refuse to consider the “enlighten us” demand to imply that I believed that there is some empirically defined “ideal temperature”.

Kini on December 14, 2007 at 4:47 PM

The question still begs – is Global Warming a Bad thing?
Where and How has Global Warming been catastrophic?
Where is the evidence to support that claim?

I assume that you are still attempting to respond to me, which makes this 3 more strawmen arguments, neatly enumerated in one post, and I never claimed any of those things.

You guys sound insane… your tilting at windmills bit gets a bit monotonous. It’s like you have a list of talking points, and whenever someone says something that is on your other list of “trigger words or phrases”, you start reciting those talking points in no particularly relevant order. For example, you response to this–which will make no sense–is probably going to be something along the lines of “oh yeah? show me some evidence that mosquitos carry malaria” or something weird like that, because its probably in your talking point list near the bottom.

corona on December 14, 2007 at 4:05 PM

I’ll ask again – how did we avoid the New Ice Age forecast in the seventies?

I have no idea what you’re talking about. We avoided it by not having one. I’m not sure what that has to do with the topic.

Cut the whining “strawman” cliché. That is a way for you to end an argument without facing the facts.
I never said you said anything about the temp. (your strawman), I asked you if you had an ideal temp. And how long you would expect that to last. It was a question to you, that’s all, a question. If it is too difficult to answer, just pass. No reason to take a potshot at someone who asks you a question, unless…watch out, who’s that tapping your phone, who is whispering in your head, someone is out to get you…

And I don’t know if I would call the two gentlemen I linked as “strawmen”. If you think they are just a couple of yokels, then who would you rely on for information? The U.N.?…wait they hired these guys, then dumped them when they didn’t support the U.N.
*
Gee, who do you go to for reliable information…maybe a real strawman? Al Gore?

]]>By: Kinihttp://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/comment-page-2/#comment-822359
Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:47:22 +0000http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/#comment-822359The Medieval Warm Period was a global event. It brought a longer growing season to Europe, the Vikings colonize Greenland and there was less sea ice so further traveling was possible into North America.

Inversely, the Little Ice Age brought a shorter growing season, famine and death. Farms and villages in Northern Europe were deserted because the farmers couldn’t grow crops in the cooler climate.

The question still begs – is Global Warming a Bad thing?
Where and How has Global Warming been catastrophic?
Where is the evidence to support that claim?

Add into that Why global warming is bad? I mean think about it. Sure it might make some parts of cities into a new veince. But it will also makes large parts of Canada, Russia, Alaska liveable. It will increase planet prodcution thereby giving an ever growing human population more food to feed itself, it will decrease the need for fossil fuels to heat your homes during winters, it will save people hundreds of dollars a year on coats, etc. If will enable humans to have more time during the year for the outdoors, recerations etc. Just because something changes doesn’t mean its bad. Global warming could be the best thing that ever happened to the human population. Why is is bad? All change is not bad.

I find it funny that those that believe in evolution the most think an evolving earth is the wrose thing to ever happen.

You’re not going to get away with spreading the steer manure unchallenged. I’ll ask again – how did we avoid the New Ice Age forecast in the seventies? Or maybe I should ask, why are afraid to answer that question?

BALI, Indonesia – A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

To the contrary, I appear to be the only one of the bunch here (well, BigS too) who believes that there is a debate. You guys seem more concerned with seeing who can fallaciously “prove” that the warming is 100% natural in the most numerous and creative ways.

DaveS on December 14, 2007 at 1:00 PM

Your premise is human activity is a contributing factor, correct?
And to what degree is this contribution a factor as compared to natural events? 1%, 25%, 50%??? Greater or Less than?

If you listen to the GW fanatics, humans are the root cause of so called Global Warming. Your counter arguments, strawman fallacy and all, seem to dismiss the natural factors to which we offered as the overwhelming contributing factor to the phenomena. While your argument tends to lean towards the human contribution.

My argument has been about the use of Global Warming as a tool to promote a socialist agenda by democrats, Al Gore, the UN and Leftist to put restrictions on the US economy, raise taxes and place unnecessary regulations on our lifestyle.

So far, most of the worlds political environment has been to accept the human contribution as the immediate need to fix without taking in any real scientific data. So when I say “Global Warming = Global Socialism”, I mean that literately. There has been a open proven agenda by the leftist socialist democrats determine to undermine the US economy by using GW scare tactics. Your argument just fuels the fire and your “strawman” is now up in flames.

So if you want to suggest that we humans have a contributing factor to GW, then put it in the correct perspective. Little if any at all.

I understand perfectly what you are saying. To think that man with its pitiful output of energy can match the Sun’s output on any type of scale is just beyond belief. All 6 billion of us burning tons of Co2 is not enough to match the Sun’s power to warm the oceans and naturally release billions upon billions of tons of Co2 into the atmosphere. Nor is man capable to match the output of Volcanic eruptions that occur daily on this planet, nor the CO2 released during massive wildfires, or the methane and Co2 produced by all animal lifeforms in the world. Man’s addition to all of this is small. To think that by driving a prius you can magically stop the major forces of the Sun, tectonic drift, ocean circulation is beyond childish and is more egotistical than anything else.

It is a matter of prespective, the world is a very very big place. Man is a small creature on that world. And therefore its impact is small compared to the forces arrayed against us. The global warmers need to understand being humble and understand that like the rest of humanity we are at the whims of nature/God. Our actions can not and will not every be powerful enough to stop the Sun or the tectonic plates.

But if the change has indeed persisted at the present rate through the 20th Century, “it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years,” he said.

Again–and probably for the last time, since neither of you seem to understand this simple premise–natural factors can be responsible for a “significant component”, as can anthropogenic factors.

It is not a black/white issue. There is a middle ground. You and Gore are equally out of touch.

Okay DaveS, enlighten us. What is the ideal temp. and how long will that ideal temp. last as it goes through the normal cycles?

I don’t remember saying there is an ideal temp. Look, if you are only able to talk to strawmen, we may as well not have a back and forth. You don’t seem to be interested in anything I’m saying… you just move from one fallacy or strawman (a fallacy in itself) to the next.

]]>By: unseenhttp://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/comment-page-2/#comment-822008
Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:35:30 +0000http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/#comment-822008But over the last 40 years or so this is certainly not true with respect to any known/understood metrics
DaveS on December 14, 2007 at 1:00 PM

Dr Solanki is presenting a paper on the reconstruction of past solar activity at Cool Stars, Stellar Systems And The Sun, a conference in Hamburg, Germany.

He says that the reconstruction shows the Maunder Minimum and the other minima that are known in the past thousand years.

But the most striking feature, he says, is that looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years.
Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer.

or this:

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun’s radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.
The increase would only be significant to Earth’s climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Sun’s increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest it does.
..
In a NASA-funded study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, Willson and his colleagues speculate on the possible history of the trend based on data collected in the pre-satellite era.

“Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more,” Willson told SPACE.com today.

Further satellite observations may eventually show the trend to be short-term. But if the change has indeed persisted at the present rate through the 20th Century, “it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years,” he said.
..

Changes in the solar cycle — and solar output — are known to cause short-term climate change on Earth. At solar max, Earth’s thin upper atmosphere can see a doubling of temperature. It swells, and denser air can puff up to the region of space where the International Space Station orbits, causing increased drag on the ship and forcing more frequent boosts from space shuttles

..

Examinations of ancient tree rings and other data show temperatures declined starting in the 13th Century, bottomed out at 2 degrees below the long-term average during the 17th Century, and did not climb back to previous levels until the late 19th Century. Separate records of sunspots, auroral activity (the Northern Lights) and terrestrial deposits of certain substances generated in atmospheric reactions triggered by solar output, suggest the Sun was persistently active prior to the onset of this Little Ice Age, as scientists call the event.

Solar activity was lowest during the 17th Century, when Earth was most frigid.
….

The new study shows that the TSI has increased by about 0.1 percent over 24 years. That is not enough to cause notable climate change, Willson and his colleagues say, unless the rate of change were maintained for a century or more.

On time scales as short as several days, the TSI can vary by 0.2 percent due to the number and size of sunspots crossing the face of the Sun. That shift, said to be insignificant to weather, is however equal to the total amount of energy used by humans, globally, for a year, the researchers estimate.

The study analyzed data from six satellites orbiting Earth at different times over the 24 years. Willson ferreted out errors in one of the datasets that had prevented previous studies from discovering the trend.

A separate recent study of Sun-induced magnetic activity near Earth, going back to 1868, provides compelling evidence that the Sun’s current increase in output goes back more than a century, Willson said.

He said firm conclusions about whether the present changes involve a long-term trend or a relatively brief aberration should come with continued monitoring into the next solar minimum, expected around 2006.

The evidence is there but because it does not fit the human bad/evil media mode it is ignored. Also note that the earth might have been alot warming 1,000 years ago than it is today, that we are reacing the end of the present solar activity flare up, the temp should come down over the course of a couple years. Also notice how in all these stories the MEDIA makes sure to point out that this does not really disprove Man made warming when in fact it does so 100% but this faint does keep the fantasy alive for those that hate modern day living.

Okay DaveS, enlighten us. What is the ideal temp. and how long will that ideal temp. last as it goes through the normal cycles?
And since you hate 6th grade science, you can run with the big dogs with this…Global weather or this More Global Warming
Now read these, and you can come back and talk big boy science.
And you can refute these two gentlemen with your knowledge and experience which is?…

I’m sure what you meant to say was C02 is .05% of the atmosphere but is THOUGHT to be responsible for up to 25%.

I think that was implied by the “up to”. The bottom of the range is something like 10%. In either case, it is significant enough that a 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has the potential to be quite impactful.

You seem determine to believe the debate is over as proponents of Global Warming would have you believe.

To the contrary, I appear to be the only one of the bunch here (well, BigS too) who believes that there is a debate. You guys seem more concerned with seeing who can fallaciously “prove” that the warming is 100% natural in the most numerous and creative ways.
unseen on December 14, 2007 at 11:51 AM

Please do explain how any one of those things “proves me wrong”… this should be interesting.

Global warming is a natural byproduct of increased Solar activity…

Over long periods yes, and even until recently that is likely true. But over the last 40 years or so this is certainly not true with respect to any known/understood metrics. You know that we can measure the suns intensity, sunspot activity, etc., and the fact is that the climate is not behaving in a manner consistent with the solar idea. If you want to speculate that there is some unknown method by which the sun is causing the warming, feel free–I would be inclined to probably agree with you–but do NOT try to pass off speculation (based on an intuitive hunch) as “proof”. That’s just stupid.

A rational, logical man when faced with overwhleming evidence that his position is wrong would omit he is wrong, change his worldview and move on.

Funny that you should say that… I used to be you, almost religious in my blind refusal to rationally examine the facts of the debate. Now I’m at a point where I understand that it isn’t a black/white issue, and that both sides have their idiots.

I put you in roughly the same category in which I put Al Gore. Neither of you gives a crap about the truth, and neither of you really has more than a laughably elemenary knowledge of the topic.

]]>By: unseenhttp://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/comment-page-2/#comment-821900
Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:49:01 +0000http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/#comment-821900Nobody ever said that CO2 played a larger role than H20, that it wasn’t a plant nutrient, or that it was more than a trace gas. CO2 is 0.05% of the atmosphere but it is responsible for up to about 25% of “greenhouse” forcing (whereas H20 contributes up to about 70%).

DaveS on December 14, 2007 at 10:08 AM

I’m sure you can prove that. If you can your better than 99% of science. I’m sure what you meant to say was C02 is .05% of the atmosphere but is THOUGHT to be responsible for up to 25%.

worldwide temperture readings after major volcanic events proves you wrong.

You have no evidence to back up your theory on CO2 cause and effect. Yet like a bull charging at a red flag you repeatly mouth the same false conclusion. That is illogical. A rational, logical man when faced with overwhleming evidence that his position is wrong would omit he is wrong, change his worldview and move on.

Global warming is a natural byproduct of increased Solar activity that effects different cycles within the earth causing positive and negative feedbacks. The earth has been warmer before and will be warmer again without any help or harm done by humans, the human species when stacked against natural process like volcanoes, ocean formation, glaciers, magma formation, tectonic forces is nothing and can have little to no effect on the planet. Even with all of our most powerful weapons fired at the same time we could only change the climte for at most a couple of years.

the climate changes all the time get over it. It gets hotter and colder on a regular basis.

Could you put that first sentence into human-speak. I’m still scratchin my noggin.

Ernest on December 14, 2007 at 9:38 AM

Please read the comments from other posters on this topic.

DaveS on December 14, 2007 at 10:08 AM

Obfuscation? Sorry to confuse you with facts.
But I thought anything greater than a 6th grade approach to a logical, sound and factual description of Global Warming wouldn’t cause that much of a problem with extraneous information.

You seem determine to believe the debate is over as proponents of Global Warming would have you believe. I believe the facts are wrong and exploited to a more immediate and detrimental purpose. And that is the leftist socialist agenda that the democrats are pushing through the use of fear mongering global warming as a problem that needs to be addressed through regulation and taxation.

DaveS, most of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is about 100 times as abundant in the atmosphere as CO2 … CO2 is an essential nutrient for plants … Carbon dioxide is such a small component of Earth’s atmosphere it’s about 380 parts per million …

What you’re doing, there, is basically reading a 6th grade science book at me… I know those things. And none of them even resembles a “good argument”.

Nobody ever said that CO2 played a larger role than H20, that it wasn’t a plant nutrient, or that it was more than a trace gas. CO2 is 0.05% of the atmosphere but it is responsible for up to about 25% of “greenhouse” forcing (whereas H20 contributes up to about 70%).

What they said was that artificially elevated levels of CO2 were likely to be artificially boosting temperature increases world-wide. Stop arguing with strawmen. Before you say something, ask yourself if it is logically sound and truly relevant, because a lot of this stuff is just obfuscation.

]]>By: Ernesthttp://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/comment-page-2/#comment-821575
Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:52:09 +0000http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/13/video-teacher-teacher-ill-raise-my-hand-to-global-warming/#comment-821575I really think Gore did all this Climate Change Crap just so he wouldn’t go down in history as a second string footnote.

“I do have important things to contribute. I do. I do. Listen to me. All coastal cities will be flooded.”

Please don’t conflate an observed phenomenon with theories as to its causes or proposed responses to it. That’s the sort of “comment” that makes silly remarks like the one above, by Hillary, so potent.

What?

Could you put that first sentence into human-speak. I’m still scratchin my noggin.